Enjoyment of sporting events is a natural way of life. While television and radio communication offers some insight into various aspects of the sport, nothing compares to actual attendance to bring out the zest and excitement of the event and, whether conducted out of doors or indoors, a fuller appreciation of the meld of human endeavor and Mother Nature.
Spectator seating currently ranges from the outdoor bleachers through semi-enclosed and fully-enclosed domed stadiums to the air conditioned comfort of loge accommodations. Contemporary attendees, however, can usually afford only the bleacher bench seats and/or the modern semi-padded stadium seats. Although these seats are designed to support the spectator, none are remarkable at providing sustained comfort throughout the whole of the sport event. While youngsters are seemingly indifferent to the hardness of the seats, older persons frequently become distracted because of the discomfort generated by having to sit on rigid seats, often in windy and cold weather conditions. Elderly persons, who enjoy sporting events as much as others, tend to experience cold legs and feet when sitting on unpadded or semi-padded stadium seats for any length of time. Hence, it has been shown that extra padding, brought into the stadium, will significantly improve comfort to the spectator and bring about more enjoyment of the sporting event.
The prior art has attempted to deal with this problem by designing portable padded seat covers that may be carried into the sports event and laid on top of the seat. For the most part, this prior art is divided into travel bags, stadium seats, combination seat cushion and tote bags, and backpacks, either with accessory chair liners or convertible-to-other configurations.
In the travel bag prior art, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,901,897 and 4,961,922 disclose mere soft bags, carryable by shoulder straps and otherwise, for carrying items to and from an event. There is no hint that such bags could adequately serve as both a conveying medium and a seat cover.
In the combination seat cushion and tote bag art, U.S. Pat. No. 3,763,972 discloses a two-sided, hinged carrying bag that is unfoldable to a seat cover, and that further contains an internal pouch for carrying liquid refreshment containers for hanging from the front of the stadium seat behind the user's legs. While the issue of the comfort of having bottles bump against the back of one's legs throughout a sporting event is not debated here, the fact remains that one must hand-carry the device to and from the stadium, thus confining one's hand and arm to that task and reducing the availability of two hands to hold stair rails, the arms of parents and the hands of children. U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,003 discloses a similar seat cushion/tote bag combination where, again, the device must be carried by hand thus eliminating the user's ability to use both hands and arms in ascending and descending treacherous steps, heavy concentrations of spectators, fidgety children and the like.
In the portable seat cushion art, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,740,466 and 4,783,120 show typical devices that may be carried by hand to and from the sporting event. These inventions illustrate the combined problems of requiring use of one's hand and arm while at the same time failing to provide a vehicle in which to carry other desirable sporting event accessories such as a camera, a video recorder, extra clothes, and the like. These items require an additional carrying device, thus further burdening an already burdened spectator.
In the backpack prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,657 discloses a typical backpack that is unfoldable into a myriad of panels, none appearing to be particularly useful as a stadium chair cover. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,622,056 and 4,925,064 disclose backpacks for carrying items therein and an additional device, carryable along with the backpack, to act as a chair or seat liner. While such dual devices are undoubtedly desirable in the wild, for stadium use, one would have the unenviable task of unloading the backpack separately from the stadium seat accessory, unrolling and positioning the seat cover, and then finding a place to store the partially or fully emptied backpack. Said activity might possibly disturb adjacent spectators.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,932 discloses a backpack convertible to a stool. While carrying the backpack clearly leaves both hands and arms free for use with other important tasks, the desirability of setting up a stool, either on top of or in front of an existing stadium seat, already reserved for the user, would probably be uncomfortable for the user and a distraction to those seated nearby. In addition, the rigid frame of the backpack would make it difficult to hide from view and would be uncomfortable to hold in one's lap for the duration of the sporting event.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,792 discloses a backpack convertible to a chair. While this appears to resolve the need for keeping the hands free during movement to and from the stadium, a means for carrying other items and providing an additional chair, it lacks some important features. First, it contains a rigid frame that, while making the backpack rigid, serves to inhibit the chair's use as a seat cover similar to the '932 patent. Secondly, the chair would probably not be a comfortable overlay to an existing stadium chair unless the two were compatible in size and shape; the chances of that are quite slim. Finally, the device does not include lateral seat cushioning.
Lateral seat cushioning is a feature where extra padding is provided outboard of the existing seat cushion of the stadium chair. More often than not, stadium chairs are made of steel or cast iron to provide rigidity to the chair and strength sufficient to withstand the up and down jumping activity of an exuberant fan. This metal frame work can become very cold or very hot to the touch depending upon the existing weather conditions. To provide real stadium seat comfort, additional covering is needed outboard of the seat portion to prevent contact between the spectator's thighs and this metal frame work.
Thus, while the prior art has attempted to deal with these problems, there still remains a need for a lightweight backpack for carrying items to and from a sporting event that is convertible to a stadium seat cover that contains the additional feature of lateral seat cushioning. Such a device is not presently in existence.